


i wasn't there

by aubrey_writes



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 14:14:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18477913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aubrey_writes/pseuds/aubrey_writes
Summary: a simple au - what if klaus hadn't been there when dave died?





	i wasn't there

It wasn’t often that he and Dave were separated.  


If they were apart, it was often only five feet between them. They were normally always touching, whether it was a hand on an arm, their pinkies linked together, or just standing so close together that their shoulders were pressed up against the other. At first, they worried that the other guys would get suspicious of them, that the fact that they were constantly at each other’s sides would alert them to what was really going on, but eventually it didn’t matter. The guys got used to it, and would even make jokes about it. Most of the teasing was completely right, though. If they were separated, something was very, very wrong.  


And something was very, very wrong.  


At some point during the search and destroy mission, chaos had erupted. Most of the time, these missions were completely useless. They would go out in the jungle, pushing through the vines, the shit, the humidity, before finding absolutely fucking nothing, and heading back to base. Sometimes these missions lasted days, and sometimes they lasted mere hours, but every single time, they sucked. That was the only common denominator in Vietnam. Everything sucked. Every once in a while, though, the unexpected would happen. It would be dead silent, not a whisper in the air, and then the night would be alive with gunfire. It would be coming from everywhere, not just right in front of you, but behind you, and above you. There would be guns firing from your side, too, of course, but where were you supposed to fire when you didn’t even know where they were? It was the fodder for nightmares, and it was exactly what had happened that night.  


One second, Klaus was laying on the ground, halfway between sleep and something else, with Dave pressed against his side, the rest of his men not far away, and the next, the jungle was alight. He had woken up with a jolt, immediately grabbing his helmet and gun based purely off extinct, but the first thought that actually registered in his mind was: where the hell is Dave? Even through the fire fight, the whooping and shooting, his mind wasn’t focused on the task at hand. He knew that that was how men got killed. Letting your mind drift in Vietnam was a recipe for disaster. You might as well just stand up and take a bullet to the chest. There was no helping him, though. Without Dave by his side, his thoughts became erratic. It was impossible to focus on anything besides the six foot hole next to him.  


The firefight had stopped about as fast as it had begun. That was normally how it happened. As quickly as the men stepped out of the jungle, they sunk right back in, disappearing with no knowledge of how much damage had been done to either side. The silence took over again, the only sound being the thundering of Klaus’ heart. For a long moment, he simply laid there on the ground, wishing desperately that Dave was there to calm him down, to take his hand and tell him that it was all okay. Panic attacks often followed the attacks of the Vietcong. It was a vicious cycle.  


Suddenly, a hand landed on his shoulder, jolting him out of his paralysis.  


“Da-” Klaus started, before his eyes landed on the person in front of him, who was very obviously not his boyfriend, “oh.”  


“Sorry, not your butt buddy,” O’Brien said, giving him a little smirk at the scowl that took over Klaus’ face, “we’re heading back to base. I’m going around and rounding up the stragglers. Most of the guys already headed back” Klaus nodded at the statement, glad that they weren’t going to be out in the jungle for the rest of the night. He could use a sleep on something other than insects.  


“Have you seen Dave?” he asked, scrambling up to his feet, using his gun to prop him up.  


“I haven’t, no. He must’ve headed back with the others. We’ll meet them at base. You’ll survive five minutes without him, I promise,” O’Brien teased back, which earned him a kick on the back of the leg, which he simply responded to with laughter. Klaus would probably have a better comeback on a different day. Most of the time, he was the jokester of the platoon, most people not wanting to tease him for the fear of getting demolished, but tonight was an exception. O’Brien seemed to notice, as they spent the rest of the time gathering up the rest of the soldiers in complete silence. The task took too long for Klaus’ liking, feeling himself start to get jittery the longer they were out there. He was about fifteen seconds from snapping on his lieutenant when he finally announced that they were ready to head back to base. But then there was the walk back, too, which he knew was going to take even longer. The rational part of his brain told him that Dave was fine. He would be sitting on a cot when Klaus got back, and a smile would melt his face the moment their eyes met. His anxieties would disappear, and Dave would wrap him in a hug. Klaus would make fun of him for being so scared about being apart, but Dave would see right through it, and know he was only saying it because of his own worries. He would gently tease him back, before kissing his forehead, letting him know that he wasn’t going anywhere.  


And then they got back to base, and Klaus checked their quarters, and there was no Dave to be found. There was no sign that he had even been there at all, really. His bed was neatly made, where the other men were getting undressed and unpacked, there was no one at all. Klaus made his way over to the bed with limbs made of cement, though he didn’t know why he headed over there at all. It wasn’t as if Dave was going to roll out from underneath the bed, say “here I am!” and get rid of every ounce of anxiety coursing through his veins. But the still had to check. The moment his hand landed on Dave’s pillow, the tent flap flew open, drawing his attention up.  


“Hargreeves!”  


Klaus moved out to the middle of the aisle, practically sprinting up towards the entrance to meet Johnson, who had a stricken look on his face.  


“What is it?” Klaus snapped, but he didn’t need to ask the question. He knew.  


He knew.  


“It’s.. it’s Katz-”  


Before Johnson could even finish, Klaus was sprinting out of the tent, across the open space of their base, immediately toward the medic tent. He was going to be in there, he was going to be critical, but otherwise okay. He would laugh at Klaus painfully, and he was going to get sent home for his injuries. Then Klaus would get out, he’d desert, and he’d meet Dave in his hometown, in the middle of nowhere, and they were going to be okay.  
Klaus plowed through the tent flaps of the medical center, eyes wild as he searched around the room. Immediately, Jensen came up to him, laying a hand on his chest to hold him back.  


“Where is he?” he asked desperately, trying to fight off his hand, but the medic was stronger than him, holding him back with little struggled, “let go of me you asshole!”  


“Hargreeves, Hargreeves, Klaus!” Klaus’ body stilled in its struggle, desperate eyes meeting Jensen’s face, white and stricken, “he didn’t make it.”  


“What.. what do you mean? Didn’t make it from what?” Back from the field? He got demoted? They found out?  


“Bullet to the chest,” every word came out slowly, molasses on his tongue, “happened right at the beginning of the firefight. The guys brought him back here a few hours ago. He..”  


Klaus was shaking his head, finally letting go of his vice grip on Jensen’s shirt, hands shaking as they pulled away.  


“No, no, that’s not.. He couldn’t have. He was laying down with me, he wasn’t..”  


"I’m sorry, Klaus. We did everything-”  


“No! You didn’t! If you had done everything you could then he would be here!” Suddenly his hands were flying, shoving Jensen in the chest, over and over as he shrieked. “Why didn’t you save him? That’s your job! That’s what you’re supposed to do! That’s your job!”  


“Klaus-”  


“You fucking bastard! This is your fault! You did this to him!” Klaus’ voice was breaking on every word, the impact of them lost as sobs shook through his body, even as he still wouldn’t let himself believe that any of this was happening. His limbs didn’t have feeling, but they were still striking Jensen’s chest, moving on their own accord. It felt as if his body was being puppeteered, and he was simply watching this all happen, sitting by and shaking his head at the poor bastard who couldn’t fathom the thought that the love of his life was gone.  


Suddenly, his movements stopped, hands hovering in the air between the two of them. “Where is he?” he asked, voice harder than before, more concrete.  
Jensen froze, a look between pity and fear coming across his face, and he didn’t need to speak for Klaus to get the answer.  


“They took him,” Klaus said, his voice barely audible, and it wasn’t even a question. Jensen’s eyes falling to the ground were all the confirmation that he needed. The tears that rolled down his face didn’t even feel like his own. “They took him home already. I.. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”  


“I’m sorry, I told them not to but you guys got back so late and I-”  


A sob wretched its way out of Klaus’ chest, like a man possessed, the noise resembling a wounded animal more than a man. At this point that was the way that he felt, too.  


“I didn’t even get to say goodbye.. Please, just.. Tell me it isn’t true,” Klaus begged, reaching out to grab onto Jensen’s uniform again, but this time out of desperation. Fear. Loss. “Please, I can’t.. I can’t do this.. Not without him I-”  


“Hey, come here, fuck,” his friend muttered, before pulling Klaus’ trembling body close to his, having to support his weight as Klaus’ legs gave out underneath him, sobs violently wracking his body. “I’m sorry, I did everything I could. I did. I swear.”  


Klaus barely registered the words being spoken to him, a ringing in his ears that overtook everything else. He could practically hear his body shaking, his heart pounding, but he wished that it would stop. That it would all stop.  


“I wasn’t even there,” he whispered into Jensen’s shoulder, wanting to scream, to rage, to blame Jensen again, but it wasn’t his fault. Jensen was there for him. “We’re never apart, but I wasn’t even there when he.. He was alone. Why did he get up? Why couldn’t he have just stayed with me?”  
Jensen tried to calm Klaus down as best as he could, but he was no Dave. He was just a medic. His hands were rough, and his body was shaped wrong, and his voice was too high pitched. There was no singing under his breath, no hushed and hurried ‘I love you’s,’ nothing but a stiff board of a man who drew the short stick in being the medic when Dave got gunned down. He cared, but he didn’t love him. He didn’t know him.  


“I have something of his, I thought you’d want it.”  


At that statement, Klaus took in a shaky breath, looking at Jensen with confusion. Before he could speak though, he just nodded to the back of the tent, beginning to lead him back. Klaus found himself sitting on one of the cots in the tent, head in his hands, still attempting to process what was happening, before Jensen was back, standing awkwardly in front of him.  


“Here. Uh, he gave them to me when.. Well, when he got back here. I assumed this was what he wanted.” Klaus forced himself to pick his head up, eyes landing immediately on the shining metal right in front of his face. A laugh escaped him, before he moved to take them, the weight perfect in his hand.  


“Uh, thank you,” he forced himself to say, clutching the dog tags in his hand. He was grateful when Jensen walked away, leaving him to grip them tightly, just as he would have to Dave if he were still there.


End file.
